EPoX Announces Bluetooth Enabled VIA KT333 Mainboard

by Anton Shilov
08/24/2002 | 11:44 AM

Being aimed on computer enthusiasts and DIY market, EPoX has to constantly renew their maiboard line so to be able to compete with the products from the rivals. This time the company decided to offer its clients a VIA KT333 based mainboard 8K5A+B2 with two USB Bluetooth transmitters.

I will explain to those, who wonder, why EPoX uses this slightly outdated core-logic for its high-end product. This company sometimes overestimates its ability to sell its goods and after the chips they had bought become a bit obsolete (probably after the introduction of a new chipset for the same platform from the same developer), they have to somehow clear their inventory stock out without a major price cut. The logical and simple way to do this is to implement certain new functions in a comparatively old product. When in May they had too lot of i845D chipsets left, they decided to introduce i845D based products with external USB 2.0 controller from VIA. Now they have a lot of KT333 in stock, they equip them with VT8235 South Bridges and Bluetooth transmitters. <%BANNER[article]%>

The 8K5A+B2 has two Bluetooth transmitters bundled. One should be plugged into any spare USB port on the mainboard and the other should be attached to another computer. EPoX claims that it should help to organise a small local area network as a Bluetooth transmitter is able to work with up to seven Bluetooth enabled devices. I am not sure what LAN are they talking about keeping in mind that Bluetooth speed is limited to 720Kb/s in asymmetric mode and 420Kb/s in symmetric mode and an ordinary transmitter works in 10 meters range only. Nevertheless, such controllers will definitely be very helpful when synchronising a PC with a PDA or a mobile phone.

The other features of the novelty are not something extraordinary at all:

• Supports Socket A Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron processors (also the latest 2400+ and 2600+ models);
• VIA KT333 chipset with VT8235 I/O Controller;
• 4 DIMM slots for up to 4GB of PC2100 (DDR266) and PC2700 (DDR333) DDR SDRAM;
• 6 PCI and 1 AGP 4x slot;
• 2-channel integrated ATA/133 controller plus external HPT372 RAID controller, supporting RAID 0, 1 and 0+1 modes;
• 10/100/Mbit/s Fast Ethernet Adapter;
• 6 USB 2.0 ports;
• Integrated AC`97 6-channel audio solution with SPDIF connectors;
• Integrated traditional POST controller;
• Supports several functions for overclockers, such as, FSB adjustment, CPU multiplier change, Vcore, Vagp and Vmem increasing functions support.

No information about pricing and availability, but I expect the product to come sometime in September; taking into account that Bluetooth transmitters are far from being cheap, I think the board will cost from 150 to 200 Euros.